Praha, Pivo, Prosim

As much as it sucks to have one, living on a budget is a bitch. If I could afford steak & crab legs & whiskey every night, believe me, I’d live it up big time. But, the pesky thing called reality bites us all in the ass and provides an anchor for which the budget-minded are required to subsist. That said, I thought I’d share some of my budget meals with my fellow budget-conscious cyber friends.

Everyone that knows me knows that I like to cook. For some the process of shopping, preparation, and the actual cooking is a tortuous concept. They just hate it. Hate everything about it. I’m not one of those people. Going to new and fancy grocery stores is something I like doing. I enjoy slowly cruising the aisles for good little edible treats. I enjoy mincing garlic and chopping onions and all that other stuff even if these things make my hands stinky or make me cry. I enjoy sauteeing random things in a pan and making sauces. It’s just fun. For me, it’s a good time.

Breakfast

A month or so ago I was craving some good American-style breakfast goodies. Other than Bohemia Bagel, it’s rather difficult (if not impossible) to find a place that serves hash browns, bacon (American style–and yes, there is a difference), bagels with cream cheese, omelettes, pancakes, etc. you get my point.

First, I love bacon. Yes, love it. There are really two camps when it comes to bacon: those from the school of ‘burn it’ and those from the school of ‘I’ll take it floppy and greasy, please.’ I am from the latter. Crispy burnt bacon, in my opinion, is a disservice to the bacon. Respect the meat. If it can disintegrate when picking it up, what’ the freaking point of that? The glorious streaks of fat in the bacon are what make it so damn good. Fat = flavor. Go ahead & deny it but it’s the truth. Any butcher will agree.

So, I really wanted some bacon on this particular day… I decided to go full out and make other stuff because I figure that if I want just one thing specifically and am required to go to the store to get it, why not go ahead and make all the other delicious breakfast accoutrements. Bread? Gotta have it. Carbs = life. I toasted up some fresh baked goodness and slapped cream cheese all over that bad boy. Huevos? Gotta have those, too. Scrambled with cheese. Check. Potatoes & onions? Ok, sounds good. Oh wait, let’s add some cherry tomatoes, too!

Lunch

I made some egg salad last week. I don’t eat egg salad regularly but I have to confess I think it’s great. Sometimes I’m pretty easy to please and egg salad is just one of those comfort food items that makes me a happy person. I don’t know about you but egg salad makes me think of picnics and the summer. You know what else makes me think of picnicking? Potato salad. Not being one who usually likes the cold side dishes associated with picnics, I felt a wild rash of potato love this morning and made some potato salad. This is an item that I had never made before but I quickly Googled a recipe and threw some things together. It actually worked and is quite tasty. It also helps that the potatoes were on sale at Albert. One kilo for 7.90Kc is pretty damn reasonable. When it’s on sale, you fucking buy it. It’s an unspoken rule to me.

Since I didn’t want to eat the potato salad by itself, I also made a grilled cheese for the side. Well ok, I’ll be fancy and call this a croque monsieur because I piled some ham on this baby. There is no cheddar in this country. Actually, all the cheeses I’ve seen have been of the light yellow variety. They love their Edam here. It’s everywhere. But, I sprung for some kind of local bleu cheese so my grilled cheese was a variant on the traditional.

Dinner

Unless you live under a rock or a terrorist regime, you’ve probably had a roast chicken in your life. Roast chicken is certainly one of my favorite foods to eat and prepare. Why? Roasting a chicken is super easy and almost impossible to destroy. Whole birds are usually reasonably priced as it requires YOU the purchaser to do the work of skinning and boning the meat.

So, how does one prepare a roast chicken? Here’s what I do and I’m basing this on using a whole chicken…

Preheat your oven to 350 or 375F

Wash your bird and pat dry

Make a delicious compound butter–I typically like minced garlic, salt & pepper, butter, lemon juice, lemon zest, thyme
(You’ll be putting the compound butter underneath and on the skin so make sure you are using an adequate quantity)

Rub the butter all over the bird and separate the skin from the meat using your fingers–this is easy to do but be careful not to pierce the skin as the mixture will of course melt and run out from under the skin

Put the bird in a roasting pan and just let that baby go!

60-75 minutes is usually ample time for the bird to cook through

How to test if a chicken is done? Pierce the meat around the leg and if the juices run clear, you’re good…. also if the legs wiggle freely, that’s a good indicator that the meat is cooked

Of course this can be done with smaller portions of meat (breast, thigh, etc.) but your cooking time will be quite a bit less as your quantity has been reduced

Another tip is to cook the meat on a bed of potatoes, onions, etc. (of course your choice) Depending on how much chicken you are using, you might want to alter when you put in the vegetables as they won’t all necessarily require the same cooking times

The vegetables will also absorb the delicious juices/butter mixture that slowly drips from the chicken so essentially, you will have a pan of damn good eats. Crack open a beer or a bottle of wine and enjoy your meal!

p.s. Good girls like me make leftovers!

Voila!